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Letters | 8-23-13

Aloha Rod Hinman and the geology professor. With all due respect, you’re both right, but both overqualified for the job. Perhaps, in your next lifetime. Welcome to Hawaii.

Jay Tomokiyo

Holualoa

KAWAIHAE HARBOR

Please add a ferry dock

According to the DOT Assessment “ocean transportation is Hawaii’s lifeline to world supporting tourism.” Really, and a ferry wasn’t even considered? This should make people’s blood boil. Tourism and ferry, going island to island affordably — seems like a no brainer. And, for retired people like us to be able to see our family on Maui — “priceless.”

With beautiful Hiilawe falls on one side of pristine Waipio Valley and ancient burial sites surrounding this heavenly area, the place is definitely sacred. Waipio Valley is the location where Kamehameha I lived his boyhood life and the area is definitely historic in nature.

Talks abound in Honokaa about possible development in Waipio Valley and I definitely know it is wrong to think in this manner about this sacred site. To think about developing Waipio Valley is definitely devilish in nature.

I say “kapu” to any development in sacred and pristine Waipio Valley, which is truly the real deal treasure in the main Hawaiian Islands. Too much of Hawaii has been made concrete jungles and rat races due to greed.

Please keep the greed and arrogance out of Waipio Valley and let “akua” live in peace.

Dean Nagasako

Honokaa

AUTISM

Preparing for the future

Our Civil Defense warns us of tsunami and major storms, and reminds how to prepare. I just wish we had something like that right now to let our West Hawaii ohana know that a wave of our own vulnerable autistic adults is on the way.

My wife and I have home-schooled our autistic child for the last 12 years, with a lot of success, experiencing by the way so much patience and aloha everywhere in our community. One thing we learned early on was that if you have an autistic child in your family, in a sense your whole family has autism, and there’s no escaping it. In the same way, because of the high percentage of our toddler keiki who have autism now (an amazing 1 in 54 of our boys, and somewhat less of our girls), we are all, right here in West Hawaii, in a sense, going to have the condition, and there will be no escaping it. We have simply got to prepare.

For now, this is my big message. Please, think about it.

Craig Sauer

Waikoloa

SHARK ATTACKS

Could uptick be tied to monk seal rebound

Just a question: With the import of monk seals from the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, could this account for the uptick in the shark attacks? Perhaps someone should look into this possibility.

C.F. Steffen

Captain Cook

FLAGS

Should American flags fly higher on vessels?

Having recently participated in the Big Island Marlin Tournament, a fantastic time and well-run event, I was somewhat surprised to see four teams from China flying rather large Chinese flags on their charter boats. I have no issues that they wanted to fly their team flag — I’m Canadian and thought I might bring one down as well — but is there no rule that foreign national flags will not fly above the American flag on an American vessel?

I’m in no way questioning the motives of the organizers, participants, captains or crew, just making an observation that the optics came across, especially when they brought the boats into formation, as rather odd.

Cameron Famino

Alberta, Canada

SPEED LIMITS

Ane Keohokalole a speed trap

On Wednesday, I was driving on Ane Keohokalole Highway, between Palani Road and Hina Lani Street. There was a police car monitoring motorists’ speeds, which is an obvious “speed trap” in an area set at 35 mph, which is ridiculous.

Anyone who has driven on this highway knows it is in the middle of nowhere. This speed limit must have been set by some bureaucrat in Hilo who has never been on this highway or even seen it.

Let’s get real and set the speed limit on this highway to at least 45 mph.